6 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 



To the south of the Goklen Gate this ridge is again broken through by a stream — the Pajaro — 

 which, draining a portion of the Santa Clara plain^ wends its way to Monterey Bay, dividing the 

 ridge into the Santa Cruz and Gavilan mountains. The Gavilan mountains take their name from 

 its most notable peak, which looms up a sharp cone, indicating the turning point of the Pajaroy 

 and giving a landmark quite as prominent and unmistakable as Monte Diablo. These moun- 

 tains trend off on the prolongation of the Santa Cruz mountains, forming the boundary between 

 the Santa Clara and the great Salinas plains ; and by gradually widening and impinging upon the 

 Monte Diablo mountains, the axes of the two are apparently lost, but embraced within an elevated 

 district lying to the west of the Tulare lake and close under the Santa Emilia mountains of the 

 Tejon. 



Proceeding westward from the Gavilan mountains, we find the third ridge extending from 

 the Bay of Monterey off to the southeast even beyond where the two preceding appear to termi- 

 nate. The axis of this ridge is broken through by the Salinas river, dividing it into the two 

 masses — the Salinas mountains on the north, and the San Jose mountain on the south. The 

 Salinas mountains are irregular and much broken, and are separated from the Gavilan by an 

 extensive plain sloping northward to the Bay of Monterey. Ascending this plain, it is 

 narrowed down to a valley which partakes somewhat of the character of a caiion, where the stream, 

 by a slight change in direction, is found to cross the axis of the ridge. Here there is a 

 breaking up and apparent termination of this ridge, but it will be perceived that it is reproduced 

 in the San Jose ridge beyond, which becomes in its extent rugged and precipitous, having an 

 extensive elevation of about four thousand feet. To the west of the San Jose, and separated 

 from it by the valleys at the headwaters of the main Salinas, lies the fourth ridge, (the Santa 

 Lucia,) which abuts on the ocean in the vicinity of Punta Gorda and trends off, occupying, 

 in its course and by its adjuncts, the most conspicuous position among its neighbors, preserving 

 its direction and identity to a greater extent than all preceding, and becoming really the main 

 axis of the chain stretching off to the peninsula of Lower California, forming, below the junction 

 of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range, the boundary between districts, one as sterile and inhos- 

 pitable as the other is beautiful and inviting. It is, however, much broken, and bears in its 

 course different local names. It not only forms the western limit to the valleys of the upper 

 Salinas, but plays the same part with reference to another plain and valley lying beyond and in 

 the prolongation of the Salinas plain. This new plain is called the Cuyama, and is sepa- 

 rated from the head of the Salinas by low transverse divides which unite the two bounding 

 ridges. The Cuyama plain is drained by the Rio Santa Maria, which, heading in the Santa 

 Emilia mountain, meanders off to the northwest, and breaks through this intervening ridge by 

 a narrow, tortuous, and exceedingly rugged caiion to the plain lying between it and the coast, 

 the Guadalupe Largo. That portion of this ridge to the north of the caiion is divided longi- 

 tudinally by the Wasna creek into two ridges, one of which is called the Napoma Ridge, and 

 the other the Santa Lucia. To the south of this canon, and oi^i^osite the Cuyama plain, the 

 ridge is again divided longitudinally by a tributary of the Santa Maria into the Cuyama 

 mountains and San Rafael mountains — the former being the boundary of the plain from which 

 the name is derived, and the latter forming the eastern limit of the Santa Inez valley. These 

 two ridges unite beyond, near the sources of the Santa Inez and San Buenaventura rivers, and 

 then the mass bears the name of Santa Cruz. 



The fifth ridge, Santa Inez mountains, is, as before remarked, apparently unlike the prece- 

 ding in the feature of parallelism, which they all possess in a great degree throughout their whole 



